Monday, February 29, 2016

Patrice Lumumba: An Amazing Story

Malcolm
X called him the most impressive black man ever to walk the African continent.
Just six months after becoming the first prime minister of the newly
independent Republic of the Congo
(later called the Democratic
Republic of the Congo), and two days before
John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961, Patrice Lumumba was shot down
by a firing squad. But Lumumba’s surprising path and sudden death serve as a
powerful reminder that for political leaders in many parts of the world, true
reform has only one major prerequisite: survival.

Few countries today are as
troubled as the Congo, a
land of 68 million nestled near the center of sub-Saharan Africa.
Belgian invaders looted the country for almost a century, during perhaps the
most brutal colonization in Africa. But Congo, rich in
mineral resources like rubber, was once poised to be an African success story,
thanks in no small part to the man his people called by one name: Lumumba.